Feds urge schools to send students to principal, not court

Jan. 9, 2014

The Obama administration issued new recommendations Jan. 8, 2014, on classroom discipline that seek to end the apparent disparities in how students of different races are punished for violating school rules. Attorney General Eric Holder, pictured, said the problem often stems from well intentioned 'zero-tolerance' policies that too often inject the criminal justice system into the resolution of problems. / Alan Diaz / File / Associated Press

Written by

Kimberly Hefling

Associated Press

Discipline recommendations

• Train all school personnel in classroom management, conflict resolution and approaches to de-escalate classroom disruptions. • Ensure that school personnel understand that they, not security or police officers, are responsible for administering routine student discipline. • Draw clear distinctions about the responsibilities of school security personnel. • Provide opportunities for school security officers to develop relationships with students and parents.

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration Wednesday pressed the nation’s schools to abandon what it described as overly zealous discipline policies that send students to court instead of the principal’s office. Even before the announcement, school districts across the country, including Nashville, have been taking action to adjust the policies that disproportionately affect minority students.

Attorney General Eric Holder said problems often stem from well-intentioned “zero-tolerance” policies that can inject the criminal justice system into school matters.

“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” Holder said.

But it’s about race, too, the government said in a letter accompanying the new guidelines it issued Wednesday.

“In our investigations, we have found cases where African-American students were disciplined more harshly and more frequently because of their race than similarly situated white students,” the Justice Department and Education Department said in the letter to school districts. “In short, racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem.”

In Metro Nashville Public Schools last year, the district’s 36,767 black students accounted for 7,921 of its suspensions and 479 of its expulsions, rates that are higher than other demographics in Metro and slightly higher than the state’s rate for African-Americans.

“While we have shown improvement, we are not where we want to be yet,” said Tony Majors, Metro’s chief support services officer. “We still have disparities in our data.”

Metro, though, has taken steps in recent years to reduce the number of students it expels. This past year, the district began deploying disciplinary hearing officers to meet with students recommended for expulsions, as well as his or her family and school administrators. The idea is to review the child’s behavior, intervene and find alternative reprimands before beginning the expulsion process.

Under Metro Director of Schools Jesse Register, the district also has started a drug diversion program for first-time offenders of the state’s zero-tolerance drug policy. Instead of leaving school for a full school year — the maximum period allowed by state law — students receive just five days of out-of-school suspension and attend an outside drug education program. Students found with hard drugs such as cocaine or crack aren’t eligible.

Majors said more than 70 percent of students who take part in the counseling return to his or her zoned schools. “It’s been very successful for us.”

Tough-on-crime laws fall out of favor

The new federal guidelines are not the first administration action regarding tough-on-crime laws or policies of the 1980s and ’90s that have lost support more broadly since then. Holder announced last summer that he was instructing federal prosecutors to stop charging nonviolent drug offenders with crimes that carry mandatory minimum sentences, a change affecting crack sentences that have disproportionately affected minorities.

The federal school discipline recommendations are nonbinding. They encourage schools to ensure that all school personnel are trained in classroom management, conflict resolution and approaches to de-escalate classroom disruptions — and understand that they are responsible for administering routine student discipline instead of security or police officers.

Still, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has acknowledged the challenge is finding the proper balance to keep schools safe and orderly.

The administration said that it would attempt to work out voluntary settlements if school disciplinary policies are found to violate federal civil rights laws.

That happened in Meridian, Miss., where the Justice Department spearheaded a settlement with the school district to end discriminatory disciplinary practices. The black students in the district were facing harsher punishment than white students for similar misbehavior.

Absent a voluntary agreement, the department could go to court to provide relief for individual students, among other things.

Uniform, swift punishment

Zero-tolerance policies became popular in the 1990s and often have been accompanied by a greater police presence in schools. The policies often spell out uniform and swift punishment for offenses such as truancy, smoking or carrying a weapon. Violators can lose classroom time or even end up with a criminal record.

In American schools, black students without disabilities were more than three times as likely as whites to be expelled or suspended, according to government civil rights data from 2011-12. Although black students made up 15 percent of students in the data collection, they made up more than a third of students suspended once, 44 percent of those suspended more than once and more than a third of students expelled.

More than half of students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or black.